Arizona has totally great idea to let people pay taxes in Bitcoin

Paying your taxes is a complicated pain, but wait if — and bear with me here — what if you could pay them on the blockchain?

That is essentially the totally real idea being debated in Arizona, as the state's House of Representatives prepares to debate Senate Bill 1091. The bill, passed by the state Senate on Feb. 8, would allow people to pay their state taxes in cryptocurrency.

If it becomes law, the bill would let cryptocurrency-rich citizens of The Grand Canyon State make tax payments via "a payment gateway, such as Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, using electronic peer-to-peer systems."

According to Cointelegraph, if passed into law Arizona could start accepting Bitcoin as a tax payment as early as 2020. And just what, exactly, would Arizona do without all those cryptoriches? Definitely not hodl.

"The Department shall convert cryptocurrency payments to United States Dollars at the prevailing rate within twenty-four hours after receipt and shall credit the taxpayer's account with the converted dollar amount," the amended bill explains.

Image: josefkubes/Getty Images

This, of course, means that someone could be left pretty seriously out of luck if the price of BTC or Ether suffers any kind of drop after payment has been made but before the state has converted the coins to USD. And, well, sudden price swings are the norm in the world of Bitcoin.

Still though, at least one Arizona elected official told Fox News that he's all for what he sees as the future.

"It's one of a litany of bills that we're running that is sending a signal to everyone in the United States, and possibly throughout the world, that Arizona is going to be the place to be for blockchain and digital currency technology in the future," explained Arizona State Rep. Jeff Weninger. “The ease of use, being able to do it in the middle of the night, being able to do it at home while you’re watching TV.”

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